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BBC Budget Cuts announced

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LE

BBC have announced 2000 job cuts and a 15% reduction in Sports budget which means they will be showing London Counties Rugby, The World Tiddly Winks championships. No mention of them cutting yaaawnenders and I bet the Journos will still be jetting off round the World for a 5 minute piece.

LE

The small print says that these job cuts will be by 2017, they aren't exactly rushing to shrink their over expansive, fat and lazy organisation, the license payer will continue to subsidise many thousands of non-jobs within the state broadcaster. Best thing the government could do is to change their funding arrangement, and ensure that they are no longer funded by an annual tax on televisions, whether you watch/listen to the state broadcaster or not.

LE

Just read this on the DM website - from the derogatory comments, it looks like a lot of Beeb employees are posting today. Just for the record, the article says that the BBC employs 17,000, but I was under the impression that it was a lot more than that (i.e. around 30,000) anyone got any accurate figures?

LE

The small print says that these job cuts will be by 2017, they aren't exactly rushing to shrink their over expansive, fat and lazy organisation, the license payer will continue to subsidise many thousands of non-jobs within the state broadcaster. Best thing the government could do is to change their funding arrangement, and ensure that they are no longer funded by an annual tax on televisions, whether you watch/listen to the state broadcaster or not.

Correct, so no one will be shoved out the door at gunpoint with their P45, (printed on sustainable and ecologically responsible paper) in their hand. All they will do is shed jobs through natural waste over a 5 years period, that's just 400 a year from their huge workfarce.

LE

Correct, so no one will be shoved out the door at gunpoint with their P45, (printed on sustainable and ecologically responsible paper) in their hand. All they will do is shed jobs through natural waste over a 5 years period, that's just 400 a year from their huge workfarce.

My take on this is that the BBC are hoping and praying for a change in government in 2015 to their friends in a Labour Government with the likes of Miliband Bradshaw et al, and then they can cancel the redundancy notice programme!

LE

Just read this on the DM website - from the derogatory comments, it looks like a lot of Beeb employees are posting today. Just for the record, the article says that the BBC employs 17,000, but I was under the impression that it was a lot more than that (i.e. around 30,000) anyone got any accurate figures?

LE

" He said the BBC would maintain its reputation by "protecting" key areas of output. Accordingly, Radio 4 and the CBeebies channel will escape any reduction in income, while the flagship channel BBC1 will lose only 3 per cent of its budget. "

LE

The BBC laid off most of their TV production and post-production staff throughout the 1990's with whole departments like costume, scenery and design being axed. Labour was no friend of the BBC, although the process was originally put in motion by John Birt's so-called "Producers' Choice" policy in the late 1980s. Most of lay-offs were funded by the selling off of property, places like Pebble Mill in Birmingham, premises in Manchester, various regional radio stations, as well as sizeable property in and around London. TV Centre is currently up for sale which should raise a few more quid.

The majority of BBC TV output is produced by independent production companies and for the programmes it does still make it relies heavily on freelance ex-BBC technical staff.

As for the 20% being less than other Government departments and organisations, that is offset by taking on financial responsibility for the World Service, diverting of some of the License fee elsewhere and a freeze on the License fee for the next few years.

But no fear it wont be too much long until Murdoch junior is fully dictating UK TV production and sports programming and how much it is going to cost the consumer.

LE

I know a number of BBC people, and you would be hard pushed to find a bigger bunch of sponging,expenses fiddling shite this side of Westminster, WTF did they need to take a £2million, flat pack, TV studio to South Africa for the World Cup, then build it on the roof of a Cape Town hospital, it did have a beautiful view of Table Mountain . But it was a couple of hundred kilometres from most of the football. The amount of waste in production of the various shows being filmed in my area beggars belief, and the muti million pound studio just built in Cardiff bay is probably going to be a waste of money, but the old HQ in Llandaff, as with the Television centre in Shepherds Bush will be worth many millions more when redeveloped.The BBC are without doubt spinning the shit out of this to cover the fact that they are, and have been, a **** up of biblical proportion

1. Make Glastonbury pay for their TV exposure, and not to send 400 outside broadcast personnel to what is effectively a commercial event.
2. Stop coverage of the Edinburgh Festival where numerous luvvies from the BBC are sent for a month's holiday every summer.
3. Reduce the events such as the 1 year to the olympics shindig which was staffed by at least 250 BBC staff (despite this being in London).
4. Review BBC3 and BBC4 TV with a view to closure, are they really needed, and aren't they filling in for what used to be BBC2 with their content, why not use BBC 2 TV to carry the junk that is output on BBC3&4 TV and close these wastes of bandwidth.
5. Review BBC Radio, by all means retain local BBC radio, but lets look at BBC Radio 6 and BBC Asian Network with a view to closure.
7. Reduce the BBC web services, or make them subscription services. BBC news stifles competition on the internet.
8. Review the salaries of the higher paid "stars" I know that overpaid and untalented ****** Jonathan Ross has now left for ITV, but there are other turds to fry - Graham Norton/Stephen Fry need reviewing.
9. Do we really need 2 channels (CBBC and Cbeebies) devoted to children? Particularly when BBC 2 is also carrying programming for children during the mornings too?
10. With the exception perhaps of BBC News, why not close BBC TV Stations until at least 4 o'clock except for special event coverage, such as the Royal Wedding etc?
11. BBC World Service radio should return to its worldwide shortwave services, putting BBC World Service on the internet is of little use when the internet is blocked (such as in the Libyan uprising/arab spring) earlier this year, and is of little use when there is no electricity in disaster zones (Japan Earthquake).
12. More common sense is required when flying BBC staff to the scene of News events, the bizarre coverage of the Japan Earthquake by James Naughtie on location in Japan 2 days after the Tsunami interviewing the Japanese ambassador by phone in London was unnecessary, and utterly wasteful of BBC resources, and cannot have helped those on the ground who were conducting rescue efforts.

The BBC has developed into massive empires and fiefdoms over the past 13 years, a lot of it is duplicating other services and is targeted at particular audiences, when in reality we all pay for the BBC, we aren't charged by our age group or ethnicity, why provide services for specialist groups. If we need a BBC3 type service why not go to subscription only services, the technology exists, why should the beleagured license (tax) payer fund services that are designed for 18-25 year olds.

I hate to point out that the BBC Quality programmes, of which over the years there have been many, are funded by the license payer, but bring in many times their cost from revenue in DVD/Book/Promotional sales around the world. I am thinking in particular of the Natural History series with David Attenborough.

My remedies in the post above deliberately avoided the need for the BBC to carry advertising, the BBC itself has a very valuable commercial arm which generates large amounts of revenue from sales of programmes/books/DVD's etc. Perhaps they could reduce their need for license fees and stand on their own feet, if cutbacks were correctly made. If the BBC cut back to their core activities (BBC1 & 2, Radio 1-4 minus extra, and local radio) perhaps they could live on their commercial income, and subscription services without the need for the license fee, which after all makes them a financially fat and wasteful organisation.